With Your Ghost
by PrintDust
Summary: She knows that there is nothing to come of it except for her own death as she put her life in danger each time she makes the journey. Somehow the thought that this time might be her last comes as a comfort to her; that it will be over soon: the numbness, the longing, the silence.
1. Chapter 1

_Her cramping limbs tug her from her sleep and she opens her eyes, sinking her teeth into her lower lip to bite back a moan. She works her legs out of their curled position, furrowing her brow as her calf muscles tighten into rocks beneath her skin. Cursing under her breath, she grabs for the bar above her bed and pulls herself up from her filthy mattress, its fabric cover soiled and stinking of body odour. _

_Her left arm has also gone numb in her sleep, and she rolls her neck, giving the limb a shake to restore its blood-flow. The cool temperature of the concrete on her bare feet is a relief in her stifling cell, and she pads around the tiny room, stretching out her legs. _

_"You awake, girl?" the man's voice startles her and she takes a step back to the back wall, feeling the hair on the back of her neck rise. The shadow moves, almost shapelessly in the dim light, to rest against the door. Bulky forearms slip through the horizontal bars to rest heavily on the vertical ones, and she catches the smell of tobacco and smoke before her eyes adjust to see the glowing tip of the cigarette in his hand. "Well?" he asks, the luminous red dot rising up where she hears him take a drag from it. When he breathes in the tip of the cigarette brightens, illuminating the shape of his beard and the tip of his nose, lighting afire the swastika tattooed on his cheek. _

_She shakes her head, finding the wall with her fingertips before settling back against it, her left shoulder blade resting against the exposed toilet plumbing. She shivers, but not in fear. She isn't sure when it had happened, but she has grown numb to the emotions that had once battled through her, and had found herself in a place of complacency. It hurts less to feign indifference than it does to fight. _

_The forearms disappear into the darkness and she breathes out, relaxing her tensed muscles. Her relief is short-lived, however, and her ears prickle at the sound of keys jingling against each other._

_Closing her eyes, she sucks in as deep a breath as she can, inflating her lungs until they feel like they'll burst. When she opens her eyes again he is standing in front of her, almost toe to toe, his large chest heaving with excitement. The darkness continues to conceal his facial features, but does nothing to hide the smell of urine and sweat that clings to his soiled clothing. Turning her face away, she lowers her chin and settles her eyes on the bed to her left. _

_"I know what you want," he breathes, leaning in until his nose almost touches the smooth skin of her neck where it dips into her collar bone. Shuddering, she squeezes her eyes closed and holds her breath, keeping as still as possible. Bracing her hands against the wall behind her, she wishes that she could melt into the concrete. _

_Short bristles of hair, coarse like a Brillo Pad, scrape against her sensitive skin as he presses a kiss to the hollow of her throat, scratching her; wearing her away. Tears blur her eyes, but she swallows them back with a throat that had become dry from dehydration – she is sure she would scream if she could remember how to. It seems as though her body has forgotten how to speak, her voicebox weak from disuse, a jewel at her throat that has tarnished with time. _

_His hand drifts over her body, tracing the concave valley of her stomach, then over the rise of her ribcage, then her breasts. He sucks in a breath when his fingers join his mouth at her throat. He traces his calloused thumb over the ridge of her jaw line, and then follows it with his tongue. Sinking her teeth into her lower lip, her chest begins to shudder and burn from lack of oxygen, her lungs constricting desperately, painfully. He pushes her back into the wall, his hard groin pressing into her thigh, and she turns her face away to suck in a trembling breath. _

_"God, you're like a statue," he chuckles softly, guiding her along the wall towards the bed, skirting the room, dragging her over the exposed metal pipes and cinderblocks. "Let's loosen you up a bit, huh, love?"_

XXXX

She gasps, bolting from sleep with a rush of fear. Sitting upright she searches the room, a single drop of cold sweat sliding down her shoulder blades, south until it reaches the top of her pants and soaks into their denim waistband. Reaching into the dark around her, she flicks on the battery-powered lantern, illuminating the cramped living-room of the small home that she has been staying in.

Slowly, she twists her body and drops her feet to the floor, embracing the feeling of the soft carpet against her soles, pushing up into her arches. She looks at the picture on the mantle, an older couple surrounded by three young girls – likely their grandchildren. Using the sofa arm, she gets easily to her feet and crosses the room to lift the picture frame and inspect it closer. The youngest girl catches her eye and she traces the floral pattern of a Shirley Temple style dress and the brown Mary Jane's clasped on tiny feet. The little girl sits comfortably on the hip of her older sister, her face turned away from the sun, her shoulder length brown hair cut neatly and partly held back by a ribbon. She squints at the pixie-like grin and the pearly baby teeth, and she feels the corners of her own mouth begin to twitch into the beginning of a smile. Stiffening, she put the photo back down, then hesitates before turning it onto its face.

She steps back toward the sofa and looked around the room again, crossing her arms over her middle.

Outside, she can hear birds chirping, and she knows that the sun will be up soon. Moving quickly, she picks up her bag and begins collecting her things, taking a moment to shove a handful of almonds in her mouth. She leaves a granola bar on the table to eat on the go, and rolls her sleeping bag before slipping it into its waterproof bag.

The street is clear when she steps outside onto the overgrown path, the area has been vacant for some time. She knows it is foolish to move on from a place that seems to be relatively safe, but she has grown restless. She doesn't like staying in one place too long – she doesn't want to feel confined.

Her car reeks heavily of gasoline, so she rolls down the window first to get some fresh air moving through the vehicle. Checking the gauge she finds that she has over a half-tank left and she thanks the hybrid-gods for awesome gas mileage. She hasn't had to touch the two jerry cans in the trunk – a relief considering how difficult the commodity has become to find.

Pressing on the accelerator, she steers the car away from the curb, avoiding and overturned mini-van in the middle of the road. Once she finds herself in less precarious driving conditions, she drops her other hand to rest on the leather sheath that covers the blade of the machete resting on her lap. Luckily for her the Walkers in the area migrate solo for the most part and she is grateful that she hasn't come across any hordes. She has become fairly confident in her ability to put down the Walkers that she's come across, sometimes even two or three at a time, but she knows the destruction that they can do when they collect together into large masses.

She drives as long as she can stand to, leaving behind the small town where she'd stayed for weeks while she'd healed physically. The quaint rows of single houses give way quickly to larger lots and then farms that seem familiar yet completely anonymous with their large stretches of barren land, overgrown with ragweed and grass that looks like it will exceed the height of her hip if she finds herself standing amongst it.

Farm after farm whisk past her window until she finds one that catches her interest. It is less intact than most of the others, but the large barn calls her name with its sloped, sagging roof and wearied planked walls with gaps large enough to slide her fingers through them. Guiding her vehicle onto the property she follows the rutted path to the barn then stopped just before it. Leaving the engine running she steps outside and inspects the barn's large doors for a moment before approaching them. Iron handles the size of her forearms are screwed in place at her eye-level and she uses them to pull the groaning doors open, their stiff hinges protesting her efforts. The car fits neatly between the stalls, snugly enough that she has to squeeze out from behind the wheel. It is tight, but it provides her coverage so she won't draw the attention of any unwanted passersby, living or otherwise.

The gaps between the boarded walls let in enough light that she is able to set up her sleeping bag in the hayloft. She decides not to light the lantern - in case its dim fiery glow is visible from the road – so when the last of the sun's fat rays fade into the moons softer glow, she turns in for what will hopefully be a nightmare free sleep.

She dreams of a toddler who wears the face of the little girl in the photo back in the small house. She knows the image is wrong, but she explores it anyway, tracing her hands over pudgy baby arms and small hands that tangle up in her own hair. She has taken to wearing it short enough that its uneven ends, sawed off with the blade of her pocketknife, barely touch her shoulders. In her dream it is long though, a brown curtain that drapes over her shoulders and across her eyes each time the wind picks it up. The toddler in her arms morphs into a little boy who settled his cheek against her collarbone, his button nose sprinkled with fine freckles.

When she wakes her arms are asleep from being crossed over her chest for god only knows how long. She stretches them out, wincing at the aching, tingly sensation as blood returns to her limbs. Sitting up she rolls her neck and looked around the barn for anything that will be useful to take with her. She spots a couple of rusty shears and a pitchfork, abandoned against the back wall of one of the stalls. In the same carrel are the skeletal remains of a horse with a long thick rope of bones that made up its neck and spinal cord.

She climbs down the ladder and heads into the stall, collecting the tools from the wall. She pauses as something crunches underfoot and she bends down to retrieve the rib bone that has caught up under her boot, mostly concealed in brittle straws of hay. She turns the off-white bone over in her palm, inspecting one toothy end before depositing it into her back pocket.

XXXX

She circles back on the highway again, following the familiar roads that she has travelled over and over again, a record stuck in a groove, replaying the same lines. She knows that there is nothing to come of it except for her own death as she put her life in danger each time she makes the journey.

Somehow the thought that this time might be her last comes as a comfort to her; that it will be over soon: the numbness, the longing, the silence. She won't have to see the ravaged remains of those not fast enough littering the streets anymore, or the hordes of heaving, stumbling faces rotting away, mindlessly searching for something to satisfy their never abating need to consume.

The road ducks into the woods, trees lining its shoulders, thick and bursting with summer fresh evergreen. She stops about a mile from the path that she knows leads over the tracks, down the small slope to the wooden footbridge. She follows the route, her weapon unsheathed and gripped in her right hand while the other holds the straps of her bag to her shoulder. Stopping at the edge of the chain-link fence, her toes pressed against the property and she trails her eyes over the familiar scene: a crouched set of buildings, stooped low in the distance, crumbling. Part of the fence to her right has been torn away, opening the space up to the figures who shamble around the yard, stumbling through wreckage of twisted wire and broken concrete.

It is a short walk around the edge of the yard to the steel doors that are partially covered by broken tree branches and waist high grass. As far away from the main building as she can get without leaving the property, she bends down and grasps the rusted handles of a thick metal door. Heaving them back, she pulls them open and a grunt, revealing a set of stairs and descend into darkness beneath the surface of the earth. The long corridor smells damp as she walk through her, her face lowered to rest her chin against the surface of her chest.

She arrives at the only inset of the wall after several yards of tunnel and searches in the dark until her fingers brushed the thin rope that is draped over a ledge. She picks up the plastic flashlight and turns it on, lighting the space around her. She takes a quick breath and pushes her way into the emergency shelter, her feet confident as she crosses the solid floor. She followed the room as it narrows into a small hallway with cells punctuating its right-side wall, and stops in front of the last one, listening to the sound of grunting and growling as she watched the shadowy figure stumble around in the dark.

Lighting a cigarette, she breathes in the toasty smoke and let it fill her lungs. Technically, she hasn't smoked since high school, but she has picked up the habit again, unsure of why she ever denied herself the comfort for so long. She leans back against the wall, her arms crossed over as she waits to be noticed, her thumb flicking the filtering end of the cigarette. It doesn't take too long for thick arms to lash out at her from between the bars, appearing suddenly with mottled black skin, tearing away from the bone where it rubs against the metal. She takes another drag from her cigarette and holds it between her lips while she turns her machete over in her hand. Approaching the cell she stares into the darkness, locating the swastika that has begun to fade into the same rotting colour of the rest of the flesh surrounding it.

She digs into her pocket and pulls out her souvenir from the barn, the one end of the bone now sharpened into a spike. The pot of his belly gives way to the makeshift weapon and she releases it, leaving it protruding from him with a satisfied grunt. She slices off his hand next that is just a palm and a thumb; she took the rest of his fingers earlier on. His chest is a ravaged mess of sliced and stabbed flesh that is rancid as she inspects it.

Her attack does nothing to deter him as he continues to reach for her with one hand and his stump. Scoffing, she turns her back on him to leave.

XXXX

_She barely understands the concept of night and day now – it has been so long since she has been allowed outside to see the sun, the moon, or anything except the grey concrete walls of her cell. When something rocks the ground she can barely respond, her body aching too much for her to move. Her neck is sore from his hands gripping it, squeezing until she was sure he would break it like a pheasants, killing her. _

_He curses from the other room and she hears furniture scraping. Sinking her teeth into her lower lip, she gets to her feet, one hand closing over her stomach, the other bunching into the fabric of her nightgown. _

_She hears the outer door slam and flinches at the sound and then the silence that follows. If he doesn't come back she will starve to death… she wonders if he would ever be so compassionate as to allow her that fate. _

_When he returns later he is in a frenzy, she can hear him knocking things over, searching frantically. He comes to her door, his chest heaving, his wife-beater askew, showing off half his chest. She steps back when he opens the cell door, clenching her fists in fear – unsure of what to expect from him. _

_"We're goin'," he tells her, reaching to grasp her forearm. She doesn't resist him as he pulls her out into the hall and towards the other room that she has only seen a few times before. It is large compared to her cell, almost overwhelmingly so, and she isn't sure she wants to know what it will feel like to be outside in the open. Shaking her head she pulls back, easily yanking her arm from his grip. _

_"Y'dumb bitch," he reaches for her again and she falls back, shaking her head, her back colliding with the wall behind her. She slides down its smooth surface, pulling her knees to her chest protectively. Reaching frantically around her she feels something slim and snatches it up. Taking a swing at him she doesn't even realize she has picked up a pen until it is lodged into the thick fold of his neck. His eyes widen with shock and he falls backwards onto his ass, his hands flying to his throat that doesn't start bleeding until he wrenches the pen free. _

_Long streams of blood jet from the wound and he covers it with both hands, sputtering at her in shock. Closing her eyes, she rests her forehead on her knees and doesn't look up again until he has gone silent. _

_Fear grips her first, if he is dead then she is alone._

* * *

Putting feelers out for this one. If you're interested in seeing it continue please let me know._  
_


	2. Chapter 2

_It takes her days before she builds up the courage to leave the tiny office. She has no shoes or pants and her stomach is cramping with intense hunger that has her partly doubled over. She doesn't intend to go far, and when she steps out into an inky black hallway, her reservations almost force her back into where she has come from. She can hear nothing in the space around her, and her hands are shaking as she fumbles with the flashlight that she had confiscated from his pocket. Dragging her teeth over her lower lip, she peers in both directions, her eyes straining to pick out any movement in the dark. _

_There are aluminum emergency signs screwed to the walls on her right side, and she can see china-cap light fixtures that hang from the ceiling, most of their bulbs broken or missing. The glass from the bulbs sting her feet, slicing her skin as she walks through the dark, her chin low and pressed to her chest. _

_She remembers there was another man at the beginning. The memory is a vague, hazy silent film that feels aged and over-exposed as she retrieves it. A Native American with dark brown glossy hair that had flicked over his shoulders as he'd leaned over her, his face angular, his teeth pearled and worn smooth as he'd spoken to her. There is an argument that she knows is happening but cannot hear or see as her too-heavy eyes drift closed long enough for it to climax with a low thwack and then a thud as he lands on the floor beside her, his eyes fixed straight ahead, glassy coals, void of life. His head is bleeding heavily and his is unmoving as she falters and slips completely into darkness. _

_The next time she had woken she'd been in the cell. _

_The hall took her to a set of concrete stairs that are so narrow that her shoulders brush the walls on either side of her. They open to what appears to be a storm drain that is rusted and flaky with rust as she grips it and pushes it out of place, opening it into a much larger space. She hesitates, her hands splayed on the cement before she builds enough nerve to push herself out into the room, her eyes falling over the collapsed outer wall where something large has struck it, disintegrating the glass and window frames that she remembered being there. _

_The debris from the building facade is scattered across the floor, and the loss of support has caused the other far wall to collapse too, creating the illusion of a war zone. She backpedals as she realizes how exposed the space is, and crawls back into the darkness below. _

A horde drives her East and she follows the highway as far as she can until she is stopped by a tangled mess of traffic that seems to go on for miles. Swinging the car around, she feels a vague sense of panic that she is walled in as cars stretch out in all directions, bottle-necking her, forcing her into a corner. The feeling begins as a slight nagging that quickly escalates until she is slamming on the break and clawing at the door handle of the car. She vaults from the vehicle, chest heaving and otherwise paralyzed, staring at the tiny confines of the driver's seat.

It takes her hours of sitting cross-legged on the hood before she decides that she will not get back into the vehicle. She packs her backpack and leaves her keys and a note about the gas tanks on the dash. Turning to the woods, she slips into the tree-line and follows it, her fingers scraping over the course jackets of bark that cover the trunks of thick trees. As she delves deeper into the woods, they become denser, thick with foliage and moss that is slippery underfoot.

By the time she arrives in a small clearing her hair is pasted to her forehead and neck with sweat and she is panting in the humid air that sits heavily on her chest. It is a small camp site that looks abandoned except for the leather boots that are drying next to a two-person pup tent. She moves cautiously around the perimeter of the site, holding her breath, wincing each time the brittle branches that litter the forest floor snap underneath her. She eyes the tent door with its heavy green canvas that is stiff and pinned down by a pair of stocking-covered feet. The socks are relatively clean and dry, so she assumes that the person is either alive or very dead, certainly not the kind of dead that will attack, though that does little to ease her apprehension. Whether rotting and craving flesh or not, people can be dangerous: she knows this well.

"You gonna rob me?" a voice asks, distinctly female, though with a lower register.

She takes a step back, sliding the machete that she has secured around her wrist out of its leather cover. The feet shift, and she considers running, but she finds herself rooted to the spot. It has been a long time since she has seen another person – a living one, at least.

When the woman pulls herself out of the short tent, she uncurls almost comically, like a contortionist clown emerging from a tiny car. The woman is dark brown with skin that is smooth, her hair twisted into dreads that fall past her shoulders as she settled onto toned calves that are shapely even underneath the fabric of her cargo pants. "Well? You gonna say something?"

Pursing her lips, she inspects the woman's curled fingers, fisted at her sides, and the determined tilt of her head. The person before her is strong, powerful, and she feels old fears begin to claw their way through her as her own fingers tighten on the weapon in her hand. Shaking her head, she retreats backwards, her feet blindly finding the uneven ground behind her. Straight-faced, the woman watches her for a moment before ebony eyes, like marbles, flick over the length of her, then soften as she loosens her stance, visibly softening her form.

"Come on over here," the woman crouches down beside the boots and begins pulling them on. She moves easily, her fingers flying over the laces as she tightens them up her shins and secures them. "I'm not gonna hurt you," she opens her palms to reveal empty hands.

She hesitates before she carefully approaches the tent again, skirting the edge of the campsite before she too lowers herself to the ground, her knees settling into the soil beneath her.

"I've seen wild rabbits less skittish," the black woman reaches into the tent and retrieves a bottle of water. She seemed to weigh her options for a moment before she tossed the bottle and let it roll the rest of the way. "It's Michonne… you got a name?"

Licking her lips, she eyes the bottle carefully then leaves it where it is, sitting in a dip in the ground, covered in a thin layer of dirt. Shaking her head, she lowers it, her throat buzzing as she works words over in her mouth like putty that has dried out and keeps cracking, unusable. Shaking her head one last time, she lowers her chin, her arms sliding around her willowy frame.

Michonne's eyes narrow but she doesn't press. "You alone out here?"

Moistening her lips she builds the courage to raise her eyes, but is careful to keep her expression neutral, twisting the handle of her weapon in her hand.

Chest heaving with a sigh, or maybe an incredulous laugh that doesn't quite come to fruition, Michonne's full lips part for a moment, the close again as she offers a tight nod. "You don't have to talk, sometimes I don't feel much like it either anymore. But you let me know if you're going or staying because we're gonna have to lay down some ground rules."

At the woman's invitation she feels her heart begin to pick up speed and her gut reaction is to get to her feet and get as far away from the little campsite as possible. Her eyes flick to the woods around them, the canopy of trees overhead that filter the sun into tiny splashes that dance on Michonne's bare shoulders. The woman is a statue, perfectly still as she waits for an answer, her chest rising and falling with long even breaths.

Reaching out, she retrieves the bottle by its clear cap and breaks the seal, wincing as the sound seems to explode in the silence around them. She tilts her head back to drink, long gulps of cool water that soothes her scorching throat and washes away the tension of bottled up words.

Michonne moves back to sit on the ground, the motion controlled and deliberate. She settles with her elbows propped up on her knees and her hands clasped in the empty space between her thighs. Her observation is obvious as she shares her attention between the surrounding woods and her bag. "So you don't have a name," she mutters after a long time, pulling a utility knife from her pack. "You opposed to me giving you one then?"

The water bottle, now empty in her hand is a perfect place to focus her attention as she ignores the question. She hasn't been called anything that she approves of for a long time, so she doesn't care one way or another. The droplets of water that remain in the bottle cling to its sides, rolling with the convex shape of the plastic when she turns it over in her hands.

"How about… Jane,' Michonne suggests, halving an apple.

Jane. She turns the word over in her mind, staring at the chalky straw coloured flesh and the small brown seeds nestled into its core. Dropping her eyes, to the ground, she let them flutter closed, blocking out the sound of Michonne's teeth sinking into the apple, the snap of the peel as it breaks cleanly along her bottom teeth.

Pushing herself to her feet, she stalks to the edge of the camp and crosses her arms over her stomach, feeling ill at the thought of being anything but the nobody she had adopted. Being nobody had become less complicated than being somebody ever had been. Nobody meant no attachments, so hurt, no loss. Nobody meant that she didn't have to remember anything at all. But Jane could be fresh. It could mean starting again. The sound of it is appealing, and she nods, her back still turned to the camp, into the past where she knows she cannot have what used to be – not anymore.

Michonne grunts over her shoulder and doesn't say anything more as she rustles fabric and starts to move around the camp. Jane keeps her back carefully placed to the woman as she takes shallow, but even breaths and resolves herself to letting go.

The sound of a quick snap and burnt sulphur has her turning around to see Michonne lighting a fire, a small low burning one that is contained by a ring of uneven stones.

"We boil water and cook during the day only; fire attracts them at night," Michonne mutters, collecting an empty bladder. Jane is startled when the other woman tosses it to her, and she fumbles with hands that are already occupied by her machete, but she gets hold of it before it hits the ground. "Creeks down that way. Keep an eye out for Walkers, they get stuck in the mud down there. You look tight though, like you can handle your own."

Jane feels her eyes narrow at the woman's choice of word to describe the dead. Walkers. Swallowing, her throat is raw and parched despite the water she had just had. A thousand questions burn within her, but unable to ask them she drops her head in defeat and sets out to where she can hear water trickling. Tamping down the buzzing feeling in her stomach, she treks through the woods, down an unsteady incline, the bladder tucked under her arm. Michonne is alone, that much is clear. Alone, just like her. Everything else doesn't matter. Everything else is hope, burning its last ember, too far gone to be saved.

_The first time she wakes, she is on her back, her arms like leaden wood at her side. The room is cast in darkness, lit only by the soft glow of a lantern, burning somewhere to her right. It reeks of petroleum, the small room filled with fumes that make her head spin and ache. There is someone standing over her and she feels tearing, like fabric, but there is only the sound of his heavy breaths. She peers up at him in the low light and can see that he is a thick man, his hair pulled back into a ponytail that sits at the base of his skull. His massive chest rises and falls evenly as he works. She traces his arms down with her eyes, over thick, hairy forearms to wrists that are painted black. Her eyes settle on his hands that are have covered as they dig inside her. _

_She is an open cavity, splayed open, her skin peeled back, and he grunts – he is taking something out. _

The night air is hot as she bolts awake, dragging it into her lungs in hungry gulps that make her chest ache as though too full, or too empty maybe. She is burning up and she claws at the sheet that is covering her, pushing her down, strangling her. Crawling back from it, her back connects with the canvas side of what she recognizes as the tent, that has closed itself around her, imprisoning her.

Something touches her arm and her eyes flip to a shadow, moving towards her. Lashing out, her nails sink into a fleshy cheek, dragging over skin until it is torn and bleeding beneath her fingernails, using it as traction so that she can push herself forward and out into the night air. It is black outside, the moon blocked by the cage of trees that block her way – she can't get out. There is no way out.

Sliding to her knees she collapses in fear that is so numb that it is barely an emotion at all, just a reaction – void of logic or control. It tightens her into a tightly wound ball of flesh and bone that cannot function, even when hands settle on her biceps from behind, gentle but firm.

"Shhh," a low voice soothes as thumbs begin to stroke her skin, even, rhythmic. "They'll hear you."

* * *

Thank-you to ReadingRed, Tell Me You're Still You, Kellieaaronbrianna, and LeannaDaseyLover for your reviews. Your encouragement means so much. You're all the reason that that chapter happened. Thank you for your patience in getting it done. It's a challenging piece on many levels. Hugs.


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